POMONA, Calif. (AP) — Top Fuel points leader Shawn Langdon moved a step closer to his first season title, leading qualifying Thursday in the season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals.

Langdon, 103 points ahead of second-place Antron Brown, needs to win in the first round of eliminations Sunday to claim the championship. Langdon had a run of 3.772 seconds at 322.27 mph. Brown was second at 3.787 and 323.74.

"That run was critical to start off the weekend," Langdon said. "It puts a little pressure on Antron. It's an A-plus effort by the Al-Anabi team. There was nothing too tricky about it. We just made a good, clean run, and it was quicker than everybody else."

Langon added that he tries not to think about the prospect of his first championship too much "to keep the nerves out of my system.

"It's an opportunity that I haven't had before. I try to take some time to allow myself to soak it in a little bit."

"Mathematically we are not out of it, but I like his chances," Edwards said of Coughlin. "We accomplished our goal for the opening session. We wanted to get down the track with a good run, acquire some data, and hopefully use that to improve on our performance for the rest of the weekend. It's been a roller-coaster Countdown for us, but we're hoping to finish off the season with a win."